Friday, March 12, 2010

Fiction Fridays: Janette Oke

Several books by Janette Oke include infertility and/or loss themes:

The Love Comes Softly series, while the main character is quite fertile, also includes a subplot of a friend with recurrent losses and eventually giving birth to her only living son with special needs. Later in the same series, there is stillbirth.

Canadian West series, especially by the second and later books, is very much an infertility story and also includes adoption loss and fulfilled adoption dreams.


A Bride for Donnigan has the main character being very unsympathetic with her friend's miscarriage grief until she herself suffers a stillborn baby.

Julia's Last Hope
depicts an after-infertility mom of twins who opens her home as a bed-and-breakfast. Her first client is a pregnant teen who is sent away to give birth and relinquish her child for adoption to save the wealthy family from disgrace. Julia gives a great representation of the processing of after-infertility emotions and I could relate to many of her conversations with God.

Janette's books are typically light, quick reading. Some even consider them "fluff" but I "cut my teeth" on Christian fiction with these as a teenager and Janette's stories will always hold a very special place in my heart. I know she has other titles that are strong fertility-related plot lines, but these are the ones that come to mind off the top of my head. Do you have any to add to this list?

1 comment:

Hannah said...

I read so many of Janette Oke's books growing up too. Loved them. I didn't even think about the infertility and adoption themes. Another book that deals with infertility and the main character's heartbreak over believing she won't be able to give her husband children is Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I was thinking about that while reading your list. Thanks for these titles.